


how to say goodbye to someone you never want to leave

by honestground



Category: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Body Dysphoria, Child Timeline, Childhood Friends, Comfort, F/M, First Time, Love Confessions, Vaginal Sex, because OoT Zelink is tragic as fuck and red wine is basically just a catalyst for sex and crying, childhood best friends getting drunk off red wine and angsting their way through their first time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 18:40:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12612928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honestground/pseuds/honestground
Summary: Do you ever feel wrong?she asked him once.Like your body wasn’t meant to be yours?





	how to say goodbye to someone you never want to leave

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posting from [tumblr](honestground.tumblr.com) because I really liked how this one came out. Part two will probably happen but I'm marking this as complete for now because it still works as a standalone piece. Enjoy~

The flush started on Zelda’s chest. 

It began as a thumbprint-sized pink mark, just below and to the left of the hollow of her throat. Innocuous at first, if you weren’t looking for it, but the wine—a full bottle, shared between them—had made it hard not to look. It had made the flush crawl and spread into something a little bigger, a little pinker. Slightly heart-shaped, if you tilted your head and squinted. Difficult to ignore. 

Link has been trying to ignore that flush all evening.

He left his boots by the door. She’d made him take them off when she first ushered him into her bedroom, answering his unspoken question by revealing the wine bottle and flashing him a grin. The look he gave her was sceptical.

“It’s my birthday tomorrow,” she’d said, in mock outrage. “Are you going to tell on me?” 

Link shook his head, smiling, as he kicked off his boots. “I won’t.” 

Unconvinced, she touched her pinky finger to the tip of her nose, expression turned stern. And Link suddenly wasn’t seeing her as the regal, beautiful, almost eighteen year-old woman she was, but as the dirt-smeared ten year-old girl, trying in vain to keep them both out of trouble.  _Promise?_

He couldn’t keep the grin off his face. He returned the gesture, lightly pressing his little finger to his nose, and her smile practically lit up the room. They hitched pinkies and shook.

Then Zelda uncorked the wine.

He’s presently sitting on the edge of her bed, rolling the near-empty bottle between his fingers as he watches the fire burn down. He’s contemplating her birthday gift—the small wooden ocarina he hand-whittled and polished over the course of weeks, now completed and wrapped in plain paper, stowed away in his quarters. Thinking how he’d much rather give her the real one, if only he could  _find_  it. 

“Rupee for your thoughts?” 

She’s been sprawled out on the bed behind him, but when she speaks her words are clear. Her tolerance for alcohol is actually quite admirable—a result of the tedious dinners with her father and the council, she says. She joins him at the edge of the bed now, her hair mussed and face a little rosy.

Link tries not to look at the flush. He deflects the question. “You’re eighteen tomorrow.” 

Zelda wrinkles her nose. “Yes. A full day of celebrations followed by a delightful dinner with my father and  _guests_.” 

Link quirks an eyebrow. 

“Suitors,” Zelda says. 

She says it like she has a bad taste in her mouth, and she pulls the wine bottle from his hands. Link watches her as she tilts it up to drain the very last dregs from the bottom. It’s difficult to imagine Zelda as a married woman. She’ll always be that ten year-old girl to him. 

… except for now, when her hair is dishevelled and her cheeks are pink and she has that heart-shaped flush on her chest and her tongue darts out to lick away a stray drop of wine—

“Do you think you’ll get married?” she asks.

Link tears his eyes away from her mouth. He really shouldn’t drink. He takes the empty bottle back from her and sets it on the floor, shrugging. “Maybe.”

“Don’t you want to?”

“Not really.” 

“Really? Even now you’re in the army and all the maidens will be vying for your hand?”

Link shrugs again. He hasn’t really given it much thought. He always figured he’d live out his days fighting monsters and following Zelda wherever she goes. Marriage had never quite factored into the equation. Unless, perhaps—

“You’ll be General soon,” Zelda says suddenly, pulling him from his inebriate thoughts. 

Link gives her a look. “Soon?”

“You will. You’ll be so  _important_  and  _busy_.” She pokes his shoulder. “I hope you’ll still have time for me.” 

Link doesn’t say anything, just gives her a crooked smile and touches his pinky to the tip of his nose. She  _beams_. 

“You’ll have to stop wearing  _this_ , though,” she quips, and playfully bats the end of his hat like a kitten. “They have a rule about Generals wearing stupid hats.”

He swats her away, grinning. “I like my hat.”

“I like it too!” Zelda says, faux-wounded. “But you’ll be  _General_ —” her hand darts out in an attempt to snatch the hat off his head, but Link deflects her easily— “and you need to set an  _example_ —” she goes for it again, only for him to impede her by catching her arm— “and it’s still  _stupid._ _”_

_S_ he makes one last attempt, reaching out with her other hand, but he grabs that wrist too. She struggles fruitlessly against his grip for a moment before giving up. “ _Stupid_ ,” she says again.

She gives a theatrical huff of resignation, and it isn’t until Link feels her breath on his face that he realises exactly how close she is. Close enough that he can almost feel the heat of her blush. Close enough that he can see the barest flecks of green in her eyes. Close enough to count the scattering of freckles that decorate her nose and cheeks.  

When he lowers his gaze, that heart-shaped flush is still there on her chest, close enough that he can see how the edges are jagged and blurred. Close enough to touch, close enough to—

“Link,” Zelda says, and when he meets her eyes again it drives all the breath from his lungs.

His body is frozen but his mind is racing, trying to think about anything but that flush. Trying not to notice she’s looking at his mouth. Trying to focus on her freckles again, counting  _eleven, twelve, thirteen—_ but then Zelda tilts her head and leans forward and everything stops.

It’s almost nothing. Just a hesitant brush of her lips on his, but Link feels it everywhere. He still has a hold on her wrists but now her hands are on his neck and he’s shaking under her touch. She exhales slowly against his mouth before she does it again. A little harder. A little more decisive. And then again. And again and again, long after he’s met her halfway and his lips have parted under hers and their mouths are moving together in a tentative push and pull and she tastes like spiced wine and her breath is  _hot_ —

The sudden noise of the bells beginning to chime over the steeple drives them apart.

They’re both breathing hard. Link can barely hear over his heartbeat pounding but neither of them move. His fingers are tingling from where they were touching her skin, and she’s still much too close. He tries counting freckles again— _eighteen, nineteen—_ but the numbers are getting muddled as the chimes ring out and he’s dully realised it’s midnight when he feels something slip from his head. 

Zelda draws back, cheeks rosy, hat clasped impishly in her fingers. “There,” she whispers, “now you look like a General.”

Link moves first this time.

There’s no hesitation when his lips find hers. His hat falls to the floor as her hands fist in his tunic, kisses open-mouthed and maddening, something desperate and heated coiling in the pit of Link’s stomach as Zelda pushes closer and sighs. He’s lightheaded from the wine and  _her_  and she’s all that’s anchoring him so he blindly follows her lead as she pulls him further onto the bed.

She’s half in his lap when they pull apart, just long enough for the two of them to frantically tug Link’s tunic and undershirt over his head. Then Zelda’s hands are in his hair and his are on her waist and he’s kissing her jaw, her neck, the heart-shaped flush near the base of her throat, then up to claim her lips again, and when she moans into his mouth he thinks he might burst into flames.

He’s thinking this as Zelda’s palms move over his chest but then her hands drift down to his belt buckle and all thinking stops.

“Zelda,” Link rasps. “I can’t—” 

“You can,” she breathes, and passes her hand over the burgeoning heat between his legs and any further protests die in his throat. He feels his belt being pulled from his trousers, hears the sound of leather and metal hitting the floor. Then her hands are on him. 

He’s immediately lost to the feel of her skin, gasping and pressing his face against her shoulder when she adjusts her grip and gently drags her fist along the length of him. She’s better, softer, warmer, altogether  _more_  than he could ever have dreamed on those guilty, sleepless nights spent alone in his quarters—when his calloused palms don’t seem so rough and he can imagine, for a moment, what it might be like in the hands of the Princess. 

He has to touch her.

Fingers curled into fists, trying to find purchase in the fabric of her bodice, the need to seek out bare skin is something close to despair. It’s too hot, too heady, the friction against him a slow, easy slide, and while she’s soft and familiar he’s barely treading water, his mind clouded with thoughts of drowning as one shaking hand strays up her dress.

He makes it just far enough to find the sliver of thigh left bare by her stocking, but when he gets there Zelda says, “Wait.” 

He goes to remove his hand immediately, ready to apologise, backtrack, grovel, anything, but she tilts her head up and kisses him instead, holding his wrist where he’s withdrawn to her knee. “Don’t stop,” she murmurs, “just wait.”

Then she pulls back and unlaces her dress. 

Link remains still, his fingers still splayed over her leg, watching as the neckline loosens and slips. He almost stops her as she pulls her arms from the sleeves. Almost opens his mouth to assure her that it was enough—this is enough,  _she_  is enough—but then the fabric pools at her waist and words simply leave him. 

A long bandage, originally white but yellowed from use, winds meticulously from her underarms to the base of her ribcage. She’s been binding herself like this since their early teens, he knows, in a desperate bid to flatten developing curves, in the hope they would vanish if she only wrapped tight enough. 

Zelda doesn’t look at him as she works to free herself. She moves slowly, methodically, starting at the bottom, hands practiced and steady even though her breath shakes. Link wants to reach out, to soothe or help or stop her but he  _knows_  her—he knows how she doesn’t let her handmaidens touch her until she’s fully dressed, knows how she avoids mirrors when they cinch her corsets at the waist, knows what this means to her and what it means to show him. 

_Do you ever feel wrong?_ she asked him once. _Like your body wasn’t meant to be yours?_

She looks up at him as the last of her bindings fall away, revealing to him what it hurts her to see.

Her skin is slightly pink from the roughness of the bandage and Link can’t help but look, his gaze drifting over the freckles on her shoulders before coming to rest on the slight swell of her breasts. She’s small and pert and utterly enticing but the shame in her eyes makes makes something twist in his gut. He withdraws his hand from beneath her skirt. Places his palm—gently, slowly, weighing her reaction—on the base of her ribcage. 

Zelda shivers, but she doesn’t pull away.

Link’s thumb barely grazes the underside of her breast, but he doesn’t want to try for more. He just shifts closer to her on the bed, leaning in so he’s close enough to kiss her, trying to find the words to tell her how thankful he is, how brave she is for shedding this barrier she places between herself and the world.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, though it isn’t enough. “Zelda, you’re beautiful.”

She kisses him first, with a quiet noise akin to a sob against his mouth, and then everything speeds up again.

His fingers still delicately circle her waist but her hands are in his hair and her kisses are  _searing_  so when she falls back against her pillows he gladly follows. She’s mumbling  _touch me, touch me_ , arching her back until her breast fills his palm, whining when his other hand eagerly moves up her dress to rediscover the soft skin of her thigh. 

The layers of fabric are hindering and she’s still in her stockings but Link can’t bring himself to care, just kisses down her neck as he draws her skirt up higher. He stutters out a gasp, the sensation of bare skin nearly sending him reeling, his hand drifting up to her hipbone, over the softness of her lower belly as his lips find hers again, and when she moans into his mouth he dips his fingers lower, finding her warm and soft and—

“… wet,” he says.

And flushes, because he didn’t mean to say it aloud, but Zelda gives a breathless laugh. “Yes.”

Encouraged by her laughter, he moves down her body, coming to rest on the juncture between her legs. He’s enthralled as he carefully explores her with his fingertips, tracing a slow line over her in long, slick, deliberate strokes, marvelling at the way she parts for him under the gentle pressure, at the unmistakable pulse of her body, the way she clutches the sheets and trembles.

She exhales a long, fluttering sigh as he kisses the jut of her hipbone, whimpering when his mouth finds her thigh. He’s bolder with his touches now, fingers coming away from her glistening, and for a moment he’s still, suspended there for a moment by the realisation that he did this to her. Then he lowers his head.

He laves his tongue over the path started with his fingers and the sweetness of her can only be rivalled by the way she breathes his name.

She tugs at his hair and he pulls his head up. She’s watching him with heavy-lidded eyes, face pink and chest heaving. She draws her lower lip between her teeth for a moment before she reaches out to him. “Here,” she whispers, “let me taste.”

A rush of heat surges through his body and Link can’t help but shiver with it as she pulls him down by his hair. He leans over her, already planning where he wants to put his mouth; on her throat, the freckles on her shoulders, her rosy nipples, the velvety softness of her abdomen—

—but then he’s pressed up against her and there’s nothing but  _skin_.

They’re both motionless at the sudden contact. Zelda’s breathing fast and shallow and Link’s heart is in his throat. The proximity is agonising, every carnal instinct screaming at him to  _move._ Link lets his forehead rest against hers, trying to ground himself. He feels dizzy. Intoxicated. 

Then Zelda sets her heel at the base of his spine and the weight of it somehow makes everything very  _real_.

She says, “Link.”

So quietly he barely hears her but he  _feels_  it, his name in her mouth making his lungs constrict, sending the pit of his stomach into freefall. Neither of them are breathing now. Too aware that nothing separates them.

“Please,” she says. And then again, louder. “Please, Link.”

Her eyes are wide and imploring _._  He’s vividly aware of her other leg closing around him, of her hands fisting in the back of his hair, holding him close. And he realises, absently, that a part of him has always hoped for this. This vague notion of  _wanting_  that kept getting squashed down by respect and reverence and fear.

He murmurs, “Are you sure?”

Zelda grips him tight, draws a shuddering breath. “Yes,” she whispers, against his mouth. “I want it to be you.”

And her words break him.

Then they’re kissing again and their mouths are urgent and everything is moving so fast. They’re still half dressed but Link doesn’t care. She’s reaching down, he’s pushing forward—there’s resistance, a sharp intake of breath, but she doesn’t let him stop—then his hips are flush to hers and she’s so  _warm_  but the heat of her surrounding him makes him feel  _nothing_ compared to the look on her face.

“ _Zelda_ ,” he breathes.

“I  _know,”_ she says, and then everything else falls away.  

He’s gasping. She’s moaning. He’s rocking against her and she’s pushing back and  _writhing_. He’s clutching her breast, her hip, her thigh. A feral noise leaves his throat when his hand finds the top of her stocking and rips it  _down_. It’s too hot. It’s too much. It’s not enough. It’s Zelda’s quiet whines against his skin and his mouth against her neck and it’s heat and it’s friction and it’s Link making a desperate, fractured sound when her teeth sink into his shoulder. 

Her body is liquid and her voice is lightning. She’s  _close_. She’s moving with him and her hand is down between them and the pitch of her cries is only rising. She’s keening  _Link_ and  _yes_  and  _Gods, don’t stop_  so Link grinds downand she arches  _up_ and then she’s thrumming, pulsing, moaning brokenly and trembling, head thrown back and body gone tight.

It’s all he can do not to follow.

He doesn’t want it to end but his movements are faltering. His hips are stuttering and she’s sensitive and whimpering but she doesn’t let him slow. She’s surging up, rolling her body up to meet him. He’s chasing it. He’s falling. He tries to say  _I love you_  but all he can manage is her name. Her hands are in his hair and her mouth is at his ear and she’s saying  _yes, yes, please, yes_  and everything’s speeding up and going bright and with one final, blissful thrust—

Zelda whispers, “Link.”

—it’s over.

They’re a mess of sweaty limbs when they come back to themselves. Link kisses her shoulder, then her neck, then the swell of each breast, before Zelda catches his face in her hands and drags his mouth up to hers. She pushes back his hair, kisses him until he’s breathless, pulls him down onto the bed beside her and sighs wistfully when he withdraws. 

“Okay?” Link asks, still breathing hard. 

Her smile is like sunlight. “ _Perfect.”_

Link cleans himself up, Zelda fixes her dress, then they curl up under the blankets. They’re facing each other across the pillows, like they’re ten years old again and sharing a secret, but neither of them speak. The room feels different. Like the world knows that a line has been crossed. That something between them has irreversibly changed.

They aren’t touching. Link is looking at her hand, inches away from his on the sheets. It feels strange, not touching her now, but before he can move, Zelda shifts closer and kisses him again. Her lips are chaste and gentle and something about it makes his chest ache. It feels like she’s saying goodbye. 

When she pulls back her eyes are wet. Link immediately reaches out in concern. “Zelda?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. 

“Why?”

“I ruined it,” she says, and her voice has gone tight. “I ruined everything. You’re my best friend and I love you so much and now I don’t know what to do.”

He feels lightheaded from her words; he shifts closer, needing her to ground him again. "What if I love you too?” 

“ _Gods.”_ She brings her hand up over her mouth, closing her eyes. Tears leak out over her cheeks and fingers. “We  _can’t._ It isn’t  _allowed_ , Link. I’m just selfish and stupid and I’ve loved you my whole life and now everything’s changed and I can’t take it back.”

Link watches helplessly as she shakes with silent sobs. Everything feels cold now, the weight of what they’ve done finally settling over them both. He doesn’t try to speak; he wishes he were better with words, but what words are there for this? She’s right—of course she’s right. It was naïve of him to think that  _this_ —that  _they_  could ever—

“I don’t want to take it back,” he says quietly.

Zelda opens her eyes and looks up at him then and he feels something inside him dislodge and fall out of place.

“I’m so sorry,” she says.

“It’s okay,” Link says, like saying it will somehow make it true.

“This can’t happen again.”

“I know.” 

“I’m  _sorry,”_ she says, and buries her face in her hands.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything at all. Just waits until her trembling subsides and then gently prises her hands away so he can kiss her wet face. He draws back and wipes the tears from her cheeks. Carefully tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. 

Then he touches his pinky finger solemnly to the tip of his nose.

Zelda gives a laugh that’s halfway to a sob. She mimics him with a watery smile, then reaches out so their pinkies can join. She doesn’t let go. She just dries her tears and settles more comfortably into the pillows, their fingers still linked between them. 

After a beat of silence, she says, quietly, “I’m going to love you forever.” 

He watches her long after her eyes have closed, long after her breathing has slowed. A small, hopeful part of him wonders what it might be like to wake up to this every day for the rest of his life, but he doesn’t allow himself to dwell. He’s already fought and lived and died for her. She’s given him more than he could ever ask, and for now, this is more than enough. Perhaps, in another lifetime, there will be another chance. Perhaps one day it will be allowed.

Zelda, though already asleep, tightens her finger on his.

And Link counts thirty-seven freckles. 


End file.
